The military and politics

1. The Military and Politics

Based on Andrew Haywood text

2. The Military

1) Monopoly of weaponry and coercive power
2) highly organized and disciplined
3) distinctive culture and set of values
4) armed forces are “above” politics

3. The role played by the military

• An instrument of war
Offense vs defense balance
Militarist regimes: Nazi
Militarism – refers to the achievement of ends by
the use of military force. 2) It is a cultural and
ideological phenomenon in which military
priorities, ideals and values come to pervade larger
society (glorification of armed forces, the
recognition of war as a legitimate instrument of
policy, a heightened sense of national patriotism,
etc.)

4. The Military

• A guarantee of political stability and order
The military can serve as
1) An emergency services in the event of natural and other disasters
2) Used to police domestic civil riots or disputes
1989 in Novy Uzen (Zhana Ozen)
“Vityaz” - a special military unit (1000-2000) was sent from Moscow
to suppress the conflict; military tanks, helicopters, and other
military technique were used
Thus the dilemma: the use of the military as a public instrument to
serve national interests or as a political weapon to further that
goals of the government

5.

6.

7. The Military

• An interest group
The military (like bureaucracy) can act as
interests groups that seek to shape or influence
the content of policy itself.
The Cold War was sustained by the vested
interests of the US and Soviet military

8. The Military

• An alternative to civilian rule
Military Junta – a group of military officers who
hold political power
The feature of the military rule is that members
of the armed forces displace civilian politicians
filling the leading posts in government on the
basis of the person’s position within the military
chain of command.

9. The Military

• Military Junta is a form of collective military
government centered on a command council
of officers whose members usually represent
the three services (the army, navy, and air
force)
• Sometimes the military rule can have one
dictator – General Pinochet in Chile, Colonel
Papandopoulos in Greece (1974-1980)

10.

11. Control the military

• 1) The military is subordinate to civilian leaders.
In the USA or KZ– the president is a commander in
chief of the military forces;
The liberal model of civil-military relations vs the
penetration model where the military is
controlled by the subjective methods that bind it
to the civilian leadership, the process of
politicization
• Policy making is the responsibility of civil
politicians
• Strict political neutrality within the armed forces

12. When does the military seize the power?

• A military coup-d’etat – is a sudden and
forcible seizure of power through illegal and
unconstitutional action
• They are carried by relatively small groups
• They replace the government or ruling group
without changing the regime or brining about
broader social change (as in case with
revolutions)
• Ex: Latin America, Spain, Africa, parts of Asia

13. Military Coups

• The military coups usually happen under the
following conditions
1) Economic backwardness
2) Loss of legitimacy by civil rulers (Nigeria)
3) Conflict between the military and the
government
4) A favorable international context (US support
of Pinochet)

14. History of Military coup d'états in Turkey

• 1960 - Young military officers take charge against Democratic
Party
• 1971 - Military coup on the economy; an event known as the
"coup by memorandum"
• 1980 - Military coup between right- and left-wing groups.
• 1997 - Military coup during Islamic Welfare Party
government2012 - Coup conspiracy
• A Turkish court cleared 236 military suspects who had been
accused of plotting to remove Erdogan when he was prime
minister in 2003.
• 2016 - Coup fails

15. The Police and Politics

• The purpose of the police is to maintain
domestic order
Three contrasting approaches to the nature of
policing and the role that it plays in society
• The liberal perspective
• The conservative perspective
• The radical perspective

16. The Police and Politics

• The liberal perspective – the police’s role is to
preserve the authority of the state and ensure
that its jurisdiction penetrates the community
• The conservative – the police is viewed as
tools of oppression that act in the interest of
the state rather than the people and serves
elites rather than the masses

17. The Police and Politics

• The liberal perspectives treats the police as a
neutral body, the purpose of which is to maintain
domestic order through the protection of
individual rights and liberties
• Two ways the government sues the police:
1) Civil policing – the enforcement of the criminal
law
2) Political policing- the use of the police as a
political rather than a civil instrument (control
strikes, demonstrations, civil unrest, terrorism,
etc.)

18. Police state

• The term Police State refers to a form of rule
in which the liberal balance between police
powers and civil liberties has been
abandoned, allowing a system of arbitrary and
indiscriminate policing to develop.
• The police acts as a private army that is
controlled by and acts in the interests of a
ruling elite. (The NKVD,then KGB , Stasi)